Idiazabal cheese

Idiazabal cheese is the cheese made in the Basque Country and Navarre (except for the towns in the Roncal valley) made 100% with sheep milk from the latxa or carranzana breed. It is a fatty cheese that has been cured for at least 60 days, each piece weighing from 1 to 3 kilos once pressed and raw.

The taste of Idiazabal cheese is intense, which fills your mouth”, well-balanced, clean and consistent with a marked taste of “matured sheep milk” and some natural rennet flavour as long as it has been cured long enough. It is a bit spicy and it should never taste sour. It has a medium level of salinity.

Idiazabal cheese must have a strong yet clean smell. It should not have a strange smell.

It is a compact cheese with not much elasticity, very firm, and it can have granules but without lumps.

The more cured it is the drier it becomes, and therefore, it will also be less elastic and more brittle and hard.